Dennehy laughed in dock and swore at judge before being told she will spend
the rest of her life behind bars after murdering three men and attempting to
kill two others

Joanna Dennehy poses for a photograph with a knife Photo: SWNS.com

3:25PM GMT 28 Feb 2014

Psychopathic serial killer Joanna Dennehy was ordered today to serve the rest of her life in prison for murdering three men before randomly selecting and attempting to kill two others.

Mr Justice Spencer told Dennehy she was "a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer" as he sentenced the 31-year-old at the Old Bailey.

Dennehy, who laughed and smirked as the judge delivered his sentencing remarks, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to the murders of Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, Kevin Lee, 48, and John Chapman, 56, in and around Peterborough over a 10-day period last March.

Police launched a nationwide hunt to find her after the bodies were discovered in remote ditches in Cambridgeshire but she went on to drive 140 miles to Hereford where she repeatedly stabbed two dog walkers.

Dennehy, of Orton Goldhay, Peterborough, also admitted two counts of attempted murder and preventing the lawful and decent burial of her murder victims.

The killer, who had seemed relaxed throughout the hearing, muttered and smirked as sentence was passed.

Addressing Dennehy, who has been diagnosed with various psychopathic disorders, Mr Justice Spencer said: "Within the space of ten days you murdered three men in cold blood.

"Although you pleaded guilty, you've made it quite clear you have no remorse.

"Only a matter of days later you attempted to kill two more men - victims chosen entirely at random.

"Miraculously they survived.

"You claim to feel remorse for those attacks but I have no hesitation in rejecting that.

"You are a cruel, calculating, selfish and manipulative serial killer."

Later the judge added: "The death and destruction you are responsible for has caused untold distress for the families of those killed and of those who survived."

The judge described how Dennehy had sent him a letter saying she was not sorry for the murders.

He added that she told a psychiatrist: "I killed to see how I would feel, to see if I was as cold as I thought I was, then it got more-ish."

Gary Stretch, 47, of Orton Goldhay, Peterborough, thought to be Britain's tallest serving prisoner at 7ft 3ins, was found guilty of the attempted murder of Robin Bereza and John Rogers after helping Dennehy select her victims in Hereford.

He was also convicted of three counts of preventing the lawful burial of a body at the trial at Cambridge Crown Court.

Representing him, Karim Khalil QC said: "There is no proper evidence that, in spite of knowing what she had done, he derived any pleasure from it."

But the judge said he had knowingly played his part in the misery caused by Dennehy.

Throughout the hearing, Stretch looked disinterested and repeatedly looked over his shoulder at Dennehy.

He yawned loudly as he was told to stand for sentencing.

The judge ordered him to serve life in prison, with a minimum term of 19 years.

As she was brought into the dock at the start of the day, Dennehy, wearing a pink Adidas vest top which revealed scarring to her arms, seemed to laugh and joke with her accomplices.

At one point the killer, flanked by 10 security guards, interrupted her own mitigation to talk to one of her barristers, repeatedly shaking her head in apparent displeasure.

Mr Lee's wife, Christina, was in court along with their children Chiara, 25, and Dino, 15, and about 20 other family members.

Attempted murder victim Mr Bereza was also in court.

Nigel Lickley QC, representing Dennehy, who the court heard was called Joanne at birth, acknowledged her crimes were "exceptionally serious".

But he added that she had not intended to "embarrass or humiliate" her victims.

"The three men who were killed were not strangers to her," he added.

"They were killed by a limited number of stab wounds.

"In essence the crimes are aggravated by the number of offences and the attempted murders."

The trial of her accomplices, Stretch and Leslie Layton, at Cambridge Crown Court earlier this year, heard that Dennehy had "cast a spell" over some of her victims.

Dennehy had met Mr Slaboszewski just days before his killing at a property in Peterborough on or soon after March 19.

He had told friends he had met an "English girlfriend" and it is thought he went to meet Dennehy expecting sex.

She stabbed him in the heart, the killer stored his body in a wheelie bin - at one point smirking as she showed the corpse to a teenage girl.

On March 29, she stabbed Mr Chapman at the block of bedsits they shared in Bifield, near Peterborough.

The court heard Mr Chapman, a Falklands War veteran, had been scared of Dennehy and described her to friends as the "man-woman" because of her intimidating nature.